British Motor Museum Volunteers

Wednesday, 15 November 2017

Volunteer Collections Centre guide Cameron Slater tells an interesting
story relating to nostalgia and how one car in the collection brought back
teenage memories.

One of the satisfying things about being a guide
in the Collections Centre is seeing people’s reactions to cars that were once
important to them. It’s the Nostalgia Factor and we see it all the time. “I
passed my test in one of those” or “My dad used to have one of those” or “That
was my very first car”. Now, although I can tick off four cars in the Museum
that I have owned at some point in my classic car career, I was never
particularly affected by the Nostalgia Factor because I’ve got loads of
photographs of them and some very vivid memories of good and bad times with all
of them.

Until, that is, I started putting together my
tour for visitors to the Collections Centre. I usually begin on the first floor
with the 1900 Daimler and contrast it with the 1950 Green Goddess Daimler which neatly illustrates 50 years of
automotive development by the same company. It’s a good talking point and gets
people thinking about the differences between the two Daimlers and about the
way cars have developed over the years.

My next talking point is the 1912 Rover Landaulette
which, at some stage, belonged to Lord Catto, who became Governor of the Bank
of England in the 1940’s. So there’s a lot of mileage (sorry!) in this car in
terms of the changing role of the motor car and the rise of the car as a part
of business life and the distinction between the wealthy owner and the
not-so-wealthy driver or chauffeur.

The
1912 Rover Landaulette is on the first floor of the Collections Centre

As I did some research into the history of the
Rover, however, I discovered that it had been part of the Sword Collection. Now
for those of you who think this is part of the Royal Armouries in Leeds, let me
set you right. John Cuthill Sword, born in Airdrie in 1892, was a wealthy
businessman in the West of Scotland who built up a transport empire which
included Western SMT Buses, well known to all who travelled in Glasgow and the
west of Scotland in the 40’s and 50’s and Midland and Scottish Air Ferries,
which flew out of Renfrew airport and which, much later, became British Midland.
Over a number of years, Sword amassed an outstanding collection of veteran and
vintage cars, many with a Scottish connection. So there were Albions,
Arroll-Johnsons, Beardmores and Argylls as well as Daimlers, Sunbeams and other
famous and exotic marques.

Sword died in 1960 and part of the car collection
was put up for auction in 1962, and this is where my nostalgic memories begin.
I would be about 15 or 16 at the time and totally obsessed with cars of all
kinds since childhood. My dear old Dad suggested that he would take me to East
Balgray, the Sword estate in Ayrshire to the viewing day for the Sword
Collection auction. Of course I jumped at the chance and we made our way into rural
Ayrshire along with a large proportion of the petrol heads of all ages in
Glasgow and the West of Scotland and places much further afield.

The cars were stored in barns and sheds and my
recollection, at a distance of more than fifty years, is that most of them
seemed to be in pretty poor condition. But this was a major sale because some
of the cars were very rare and most of them had never been seen since Sword
acquired them.

All this came back to me when I was looking
into the history of the Collections Centre’s Rover Landaulette. And the
Nostalgia Factor was not so much about the cars, but about my old Dad who’s
been dead for more than twenty years now. He was often a bit distant and his
job meant he spent a lot of time away from home, but on that weekend in 1962,
he must have thought that I would enjoy seeing these marvellous old cars and
that it would be a day out for just the two of us. It had the added effect that
it brought us a bit closer together; not only did he start letting me drive his
company car – which was a pretty risky thing for him to do (away from the
public roads of course) - but when the time came, he got me through my driving
test at the first attempt, aged 17.

And I never looked back – at least not until I
discovered that the 1912 Rover Landaulette in the Collections Centre had been
in the Sword Collection all those years ago.

Friday, 29 September 2017

It’s hard to believe that five years have passed since
August 2012 when 53 volunteers were recruited, by the then Heritage Motor
Centre, as part of their lottery funded campaign for the building of a new
Collections Centre. During that time we have carried out full vehicle surveys
of every vehicle in the collection and all relevant mechanical data, renovated
cars and engines, attended shows and exhibitions and worked on an oral history
project. Then in February 2016, we finally became guides at the new Collections
Centre.

The class of 2012 in
the motorsport section of the main Museum

Of the original volunteers, 27 remain actively involved at
what is now the British Motor Museum, in some or all of the above activities.
To recognise our five years of service the Museum, and its Managing Director
Julie Tew, kindly invited us all to a reception recently where we were all
thanked for our dedicated service and help. Twenty three of us were able to
attend and were presented with a certificate and a five year service badge,
followed by tea/coffee and a specially made, rather large chocolate cake.

It should be pointed out that since the Collections Centre
opened in 2016 and with an increasing number of visitors, a lot more volunteers
have now been recruited. We now number around 80, allowing four guides per day
to be on duty for the full seven days of the week that the Museum is now open.

The
cake, in all its glory is shown above, together with Julie Tew presenting
Oliver White with his certificate and badge. Oliver incidentally has in fact
been a volunteer for over 11 years, having started well before the current
volunteer programme began. He’s a former BBC editor who spends a lot of his
time in the sorting and labelling of film material for the archives department.

The
awards news doesn’t end there though, as for the second year running, the
British Motor Museum had two entries accepted for the annual West Midlands
Museum Development Volunteer Awards. The ceremony was hosted by BBC presenter
Sarah Bishop at the Birmingham Hippodrome on 19th September. Volunteer
Mark Bradbury was nominated for the individual “Above and Beyond” category for
his work in moving, collating and displaying the Museum’s artefacts, whilst
Vince Hall was nominated in the “Collections” category for his work leading the
oral history team and in particular for all the editing he has undertaken. Both
finalists received recognition of their achievements from the judges with Vince
declared the worthy winner of his category.

Above
are some members of the oral history group alongside one of the recently
installed audio consoles in the main Museum. Vince is in the pale blue jumper
knealing at the front and his Winners’ tile plaque is shown on the right.

Wednesday, 19 July 2017

During June, volunteer Ian Hicks, who played a large part in organising the Museum’s Symposium back in March, received an invitation along with Emma Rawlinson, Family and Lifelong Learning Officer, to attend Autocar’s celebration of Great British women in the car industry. This is Ian’s account of the day;

This is the second year that Autocar magazine has recognised and celebrated the rising women stars of the British Motor Industry. The event, to inspire more women to consider a career in the industry we love, was hosted at the home of English Rugby, Twickenham stadium.

The panel on stage

The current imbalance between the numbers of men and women in the industry is dramatic. By shining a spotlight on those who have both reached the top, and the industry's brightest rising stars, Autocar and the organisers hope more women will consider the rich, exciting careers that are open to them.

The day was really inspiring with talks and panel discussions with the great and the good from across the British Motor Industry. There were some interesting insights into development of the Land Rover Velar, and the Riversimple hydrogen powered car, a whole new concept in vehicle “ownership.”

It was inspiring to see how many women had achieved senior roles in the automotive industry, Emma and I had a really enthusiastic conversation with Helen Emsley, the Head of Design at General Motors in US. It was interesting to hear how they do all their styling in-house and have their own model-makers, carpenters and artists-in-clay to create and better control their vehicle styling.

Emma and Ian

Emma and I were able to network and build contacts for future events at the Museum. As ever, it was really gratifying to hear pretty well everyone had heard of British Motor Museum and were all, to a man (or maybe woman) really complimentary about what we do.

Tuesday, 20 June 2017

It’s been some time since our last blog on the Ensign, which covered the decisions and processes regarding the vehicle painting. Whilst some areas of the bodywork will still require final attention, the rewarding job of assembling all the components, including the engine, is now well underway.

The saying goes, “every picture tells a story” and the following photos clearly illustrate some of the work the restoration volunteers have undertaken recently. It is perhaps worth reminding readers that this whole restoration project has been done by different teams of volunteers working on different days, and been coordinated by a log written up after each day.

The first of these photos shows the new door seals that were required being fitted. The second shows glue being applied to the roof interior prior to the sound proof padding being attached. At this stage the car was still attached to the swivel vehicle frame, which allowed the car to be worked on at various upside down angles.

These photos clearly show the engine bay before and after the engine was fitted. Again some new parts were required as can be seen, with a new brake servo on the left and new copper brake pipes in the centre.

With most of the wiring now installed in the car, things like the front and rear lights can be fitted

Following the installation of the engine, the gearbox has now been fitted as well. As you can see the interior wiring looms are now all in place, so one of the next tasks will be to fit the dashboard and all the instruments.

So, as this last photo shows, our Ensign is looking something like its original self again. There are still a lot of fiddly jobs to be done and a few minor problems to solve, but at long last the end is in sight.

Don’t forget when visiting the British Motor Museum you can see the Ensign being worked on. It’s situated on the first floor of the Collections Centre and the volunteers will be only too happy to chat to you and answer any queries you may have.

Wednesday, 5 April 2017

A Volunteers
view

On 25 March, several volunteers attended a new
Museum initiative, a one day series of lectures, open to the public, devoted to
the future of the British Motor Industry.
Five well-respected and industry-leading professionals gave an overview
of where the British car industry is today, how it got there and how they
expected it to evolve over the coming years. Volunteer Ian Hicks played a
significant role in organising the event as he described in our previous blog. Here
he now gives his scenario on what that future might look like in 40 years time:

Spring 2057

Stephen gets into his L segment personal transport, ready
for his drive into work. The journey will take him around 30 minutes each way,
apparently, the same amount of time people used to commute to work 100 years
ago. Whilst he prepares to drive off, he
reflects that the 1990’s phenomenon of telecommuting and virtual offices never
really materialised. People still needed to travel to their places of work,
they still needed to interact with people and things.

His personal transport, the latest Changhong model, built in
Coventry, is a single seater. Despite its battery and electric drives, it
weighs in at a mere 150 kg and has a range of 150 miles before it needs
recharging. This is perfect, since 98% of his journeys are 50 miles or less. On
the occasions Stephen wants to take the family out for weekend trips or
holidays, he contacts Changhong from his “connected car” and they arrange a
family size electric vehicle as part of his “servicisation” package. There’s no
longer the need to purchase or contract hire the largest vehicle to suit all
needs.

Checking the controls of his personal transport, he selects
the FOHOBO controller for his commute. This is a recent innovation, where he
can select “Feet-Off” where the car controls speed and braking only; or
“Hands-Off” where the car controls position and direction or “Brain-Off” where
the car operates in fully autonomous mode.

On his way to the Motor Museum, where he is curator, the
speed of his car is controlled by smart loops set into the road, relaying speed
information to the car’s controller. Despite more autonomy in controlling cars,
there are still strict speed limits in place, mainly to protect pedestrians,
cyclists and those drivers still not using fully autonomous cars. Even though
cars have been in use in Britain for over 150 years, there’s only been one
four-year period, 1930 to 1934 when drivers and their cars have not had to
comply with speed limits.

Stephen contemplates his latest acquisitions for the Museum’s
collection; it’s a 2025 Jaguar G type, a fully-electric vehicle and the last
model ever produced at Castle Bromwich. The car is in lovely condition, and the
crew at the museum will be able to maintain the mechanical components and even
the electric drives. However, the
software controllers for the FOHOBO and environment connectivity are no longer
made and with over 10 million lines of software are beyond the skills of his
support crew and challenge even the most dedicated software developers, who are
a dying breed these days.

Stephen Laing
(Curator) far left and the panel of leading industry experts

Tata were one of the winners in the so-called Brexit impacts
when UK distanced itself from the European car market. The Brexit negotiations resulted in high
tariffs imposed on UK produced cars being sold in Europe but strong demand in
the other regions of the globe meant that the Jaguar brand was able to sustain
its market position. It was a pity about Europe, but in common with other
manufacturers, Tata needed to produce vehicles that complied with global
specifications, producing cars with regional variations meeting local
specifications wasn’t good business. The success of Tata and others with UK
manufacture was to be applauded, but UK was still only the 13th
largest producer in the world…. Exactly the same position as it occupied in 2017.

As he arrived at the Museum, he thought back to something
he’d read recently in the Museum archives. Back in March 2017, a British MP,
Sir Greg Knight had advised Museum attendees that now’s the time to buy and own
a classic. How prophetic Sir Greg was. Since then legislation, environmental
concerns and the wholesale replacement of petrol stations with supermarket
charging points meant that internal combustion cars were no longer viable, even
on the shortest journeys. Of the 500 cars in the collection, this meant that
over 350 were genuinely just museum pieces……. But that didn’t seem to stop the
public being really interested in this transport of yesteryear.

Friday, 3 March 2017

Our last blog described some of the other opportunities and
activities that come our way whilst volunteering at the Museum. However, one of
our colleagues, Ian Hicks, went the extra mile, when in September last year he
volunteered to become one of the prime organisers for the forthcoming British
Motor Museum Symposium on 25 March.

This is Ian’s fascinating story of what it all involved;

“How volunteering at British Motor Museum took me to
Westminster’s Brexit debate"

When I joined the museum as a Collection Centre guide in
April 2016, little did I think that this volunteering would take me to the seat
of democracy, Westminster’s Houses of Parliament, watching the most significant
debate in living memory unfold in front of me.

Back in early February, I found myself meeting Sir Greg
Knight, MP for East Yorkshire, together with Stephen Laing, our curator and
Steve Cropley, Editor in Chief of Autocar and Trustee of the Museum.

The meeting was concluding and Sir Greg invited the three of
us to watch the Brexit debate from the visitor’s gallery in the Commons. We
felt we were watching history in the making as well-known and slightly less
famous politicians debated the impact Brexit would have on the UK’s nuclear
industry.

My route to the Brexit debate started when I met with Emma
Rawlinson. As Family and Lifelong
Learning Officer, Emma was on the lookout for people to help with many
projects, one of which was to organise a symposium. This was a new initiative
for the Museum, which had received funding from the Arts Council for the event. I
have some experience organising similar events, so I was happy to help
out.

Our starting point was a theme for the symposium: A celebration
of the British Motor Car. It was to be a one day event on 25 March. Stephen Laing, Curator of the Museum, had already volunteered to Chair
the event.

We wanted to attract a group of well-known industry figures
to present their view of the future of the British Motor Car and the automotive
industry.

As Chairman of the All-party Parliamentary Group for
Historic Vehicles, Sir Greg Knight was high on our list of “must-have”
presenters. Coincidentally, we first approached Sir Greg’s office around the
time of the EU referendum on 23 June. The initial signs were good,
he seemed interested. But to get to speak to the MP and Privy Councillor was
more challenging, especially as the whole Conservative leadership contest was
unfolding following the resignation of David Cameron. We had to wait patiently as the contest
played out and the majority party stabilised again.

While we were waiting, we took the opportunity to sign up
other people on our must-have list. With their expertise in car manufacture in
the Midlands region, we were happy to get the green light from Professor David
Morris and Dr. Jason Begley from Coventry University. David Bailey, Professor at Aston Business
School, regularly appears on television giving his strategic industry overview
of car manufacture in the UK. He knows
the museum well and was happy to support our symposium.

Steve Cropley, Editor in Chief of Autocar and Trustee of the
museum found out about the symposium and was happy to volunteer his services as
a presenter, explaining how the press and social media play an important role
in car ownership decisions. Steve has also been a great help in refining our
marketing messages for the event, he’s a real supporter of the Museum.

Finally, thanks to Stephen Laing’s network, we convinced
Professor David Greenwood, originally with Ricardo, latterly with WMG at the
University of Warwick, to share his views. David is a thought leader and future
technologist. He’s the man to set the scene for battery and hydrogen power,
autonomous vehicles and the like.

So finally, in mid-January, we got an invite to attend the
Houses of Parliament to meet Sir Greg. It turns out he has a real passion for
classic cars. He owns a number of historic cars, including an Allard, a Cord, a
Studebaker, a Rover P5B Coupe and four Jensens! He was really enthused to
explain how he represents the interests of classic car owners against some of
the more interesting planned legislation.

Sir Greg Knight in
his 1952 Allard P1

Since meeting with Sir Greg, it’s been flat out finalising
marketing material, press releases, mail-shots, e-shots and taking all
opportunities to promote the symposium.
As well as relentless promotion and marketing of the symposium we still
have to create flyers for advertising at Museum events, we have to create
presenter and audience packs and arrange all the logistics. There’s lot still
to do.

Then, once we’ve got this one under our belt we’ll be
straight into arranging a Christmas lecture and practical for 12 to
18-year-olds. We’re already planning for symposium events for 2018. It’s
non-stop.”

Further full and up to date details of the Symposium can be
found on the Museums website here

Tickets are still available and can be bought online. I’ve
just bought mine for what will surely be a fascinating and interesting day for
any car enthusiast.

Tuesday, 31 January 2017

One of the great things about being a volunteer at the
British Motor Museum is that we get the chance to become involved in a wide
range of other activities besides our normal duties and projects. This blog
gives a brief overview of what else some of us have been up to over the last
six months.

The Classic Virgins Experience Day is perhaps one of the
best examples of this, where volunteers have now become an integral part of
this popular one day course. Put simply, the day is for members of the public
who have an interest in owning a classic car, but need more knowledge and
experience of what it actually entails. Theory and basic maintenance sessions
are given as well as rides in a variety of classic cars – some owned by the
volunteers themselves. The next Classic Virgins will be held on 22April, details of which can be found here.

Volunteers in the
Museum’s workshop examine a variety of classic cars

An event that always attracts a large number of volunteers
is the Lancaster Insurance Classic Motor Show at the NEC in November. On your
feet, manning a stand from 10am. until 6pm. – talking classic cars is dream
ticket for some of our volunteers. However, as only three volunteers are
required for each of the show’s three days, a ballot is necessary to select the
lucky nine.

Manning the British Motor
Museum’s stand at the NEC in November

The Museum’s popular annual Christmas Lecture took place on
3 December and featured Steve Liddle, Principal Aerodynamicist at
Renault Sport F1 Racing. Following his lecture and a brief lunch break,
delegates returned to put what they’d learned into practice, by building some
simple small electric model cars, incorporating their own take on what they’d
learned regarding aerodynamic efficiency. This is where four of our volunteers
played their part, as following a training day in November, they were well
briefed to have an enjoyable time helping and advising with the model building.

Volunteers training
and model building for the Christmas Lecture

Whilst we, as do most volunteers, give up our free time to
get involved in projects we have an interest in, it’s always nice to be
rewarded or recognised. The British Motor Museum is very good at that and once
again we were all invited to their annual Christmas Dinner on 19 December. Prior to that, a day trip down to Luton to visit Vauxhall’s Heritage
Centre was also arranged for us all. This was particularly interesting as the
centre only opens by appointment and two guides were on duty to show us around
and explain the history of the exhibits.

Our well attended day trip
to the Vauxhall Heritage Centre was of great interest

Finally,
it was nice to be recognised at the inaugural West Midlands Volunteers Awards,
organised by the West Midlands Museum Development. Held at the Birmingham
Hippodrome back in September and hosted by local BBC journalist Sarah Falkard,
the Museum had two finalists in the eight categories. The first was the Project
Award, for this very blog and the second for Working Together, for the whole
team at the new Collections Centre. Whilst we didn’t come away with the top
prize in either category it was nice for our work to be recognised and to come
away with nomination placques. The three of us who went had a good night out as
well!